NOAA has announced it will raise the target for the scallop fishery by almost 6 percent for 2012 after an 8 percent increase in 2011, which one would expect will keep the port of New Bedford at the top of the money chart for U.S. fish landings.
The agency is also promising to close for a portion of a subsequent year scallop grounds where bycatch of the bottom-dwelling — and less valuable — yellowtail flounder exceeds an annual limit. This practice has been in place for several years, and NOAA now promises to coordinate the closed areas in such a way as to provide successful scalloping elsewhere.
A program being run by the UMass Dartmouth School for Marine Science and Technology takes this a step further and uses this "choke" mechanism to make the fishery more efficient and advance the same goals as NOAA's.
Read the complete editorial from The Standard-Times.